Hall of Typologies

Separate letters for consonants and vowels — the fully explicit systems.

Consonant letters only; the reader supplies the vowels — a natural fit for Semitic roots.

A consonant carries an inherent vowel; attached marks change it — the Brahmic idea, and Ethiopic's independent one.

One sign per syllable — no separating consonant from vowel.

Signs stand for whole morphemes — words, not sounds. The deep collection lives with our partner institute.

Letter shapes that diagram the speech organs making the sound — the rarest design in the building.

Systems that encode something other than speech — pitch and duration, a moving body, a voice taken down at speed. They are held here because they are read the way a script is: the marks mean in sequence and arrangement, and one taken out of its neighbours means nothing. A mark that does mean on its own — an ampersand, a hazard sign, a currency symbol — is a symbol rather than a notation, and is read at symbolic.institute.

Typology not established — the sealed cases, read but not classified.